Shinji Ikari Raising Project

[Dartz]

It's a corrupting influence I tell ya!

It would've been a mess to try and pad it out with tags and the like. These are two people having a conversation through a bunch of topics and i totally spaced out and forgot where I was going with that whole line of reasoning. This is why staying awake all night is bad. Stupid sleepnessless.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Bob Schroeck]

“Kat Avins. She lives on Grovers,” Jet said. “I met her once when I was a courier, about ten years ago.”

So this is Infinities material, then, because that would have to put it no earlier than 2022.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Dartz]

If it makes a difference it's sometime after Maico Tange visits in 2022. It's a bit late, but it's when Frigga exists and is inhabited. It can't be earlier than 2020-21.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Warringer]

Don't forget to get Shinji a Blueray with Pink Floyd's 2014 Concert in Kandor, aka 'The Great Gig in the Sky'. :p

[Dartz]

Just while Im thinking about it, any ideas for who might be training at Frigga?
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

A few ideas:

• Some Warsies or Roughriders taking a ground-assault refresher course
  
• A team of "Justice" subfaction Senshi getting to know each others' strengths and weaknesses
  
• Some Supers, letting off steam
  

I'd ask that they not be Stellvians, though - that would complicate things with Yayoi there.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

The (or a) Vitamin Man?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[HRogge]

I think Dartz is looking for cyborgs for Panzerkunst training.

[Warringer]

FESWAT teams

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Anybody with powered armour teams would like training for this sort of thing. The Supers will have their own training facility to use in 2011 (called The Pit, it is a sub-Luna cavern with a larger simulation environment than everybody else can provide). Given that this will be open to OGJ-aligned forces (i.e. the factions that can support the equivalent of a military and/or a large security force), it will allow Frigga to develop with smaller police or mercenary forces.

[Dartz]

Gah... was at a small con yesterday and probably should've clarified that.

I was more pondering on the few residential Panzer Kunst students rather than anyone using Survival Shot. Cybers/Curious AI who might not meet certain requirements for Grunthal, or those who might be specifically referred to Jet for whatever reason.

The Blitzkrieg school would have a different style of instruction, and a very different doctrine for armour users. With a specialisation in Stingray armours for obvious reasons. That said, Survival Shot came about precisely because Jet didn't get as many live-in students as she expected.

Was trying to think of somebody Shinji could bump into who'd let slip the words Neon Genesis Evangelion. For that, a bunch of Senshi would certainly fit.... with a little miscommunication filled in by a few assumptions on their part.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Dartz]

Arise...

-------

Shinji’s eyes opened again.

He was met by his own reflection in the window. The boy in the glass stared back at him. The only way to be certain would be to smash the window, but he couldn’t smash the window unless he was certain.

He felt his stomach go tight as his mind fell back to those few seconds in the lake when he actually tried.

The reflected image in the window went foetal. A few tears trickled down his cheeks while he forced it out of his mind.

It wouldn’t go away.

Why won’t it go away?

A merciful knock on the door banished it from his mind. The latch went chack as someone opened it. His body winced. It sounded so much like the pistol...

Pushed against his head.

“There are messages for you in the control room, if you’d like to go up and get them.”

For a brief moment, Kotono Ito almost sounded like his Misato. It was close enough that, for a heartbeat, he almost felt that he could turn over and see her standing there in the doorway.

He chose not to disappoint himself.

She was just trying to get him out of bed, There was one obvious flaw with the attempt.

“Why would there be any messages for me?”

“Because we asked for help, and people figured out who you were. There’re a lot of people out there who care about you.”

One more point for this all being a fantasy created inside his own mind. It was giving him what he most wanted, trying to claw him in. It refused to go away, no matter how hard he begged.

“You can’t stay in bed all day.”

She was starting to sound annoyed. Good. Then she’d get frustrated. Then she’d snap. Then she’d finally leave him alone. Shinji just curled.

“What if you need to go the bathroom? You did have a lot to eat and drink yesterday. And it’s all got to come out?”

She was trying to sound like she was teasing him, but didn’t really have her heart in it like Misato did.

She also had a point. Unless he wanted to make a dirty protest of it, there was no way he’d be able to just wait her out. As far as he guessed, Kotono didn’t have to work shifts. His determination ebbed away as he thought about pushing things that far.

They may not have been real, but he still worried about what they thought about him.

“Could you please leave?”

He tried to phrase it as politely as he could manage.

“I won’t leave until you get up, Shinji,” she stated.

“I’m naked.”

His tone was perfectly deadpan. Just a statement of fact.

An impishly embarrassed giggle. “Sorry. I forgot we took your clothes off last night,”

Wait. They took his clothes off? So that meant they’d all.....

It felt like every single muscle in his body contracted at once, curling him down into a defensive little ball under the mylar sheet. It ripped across his back, allowing a cold draft of air to crawl down his spine.

“I’ll just leave you to get dressed.”

He swore to himself that he heard her wink right before the door closed.

A few minutes later Shinji emerged from his room, dressed in more clothes he was certain were borrowed from Mackie. They were still much too large.He groaned, slouching along like a convict being led to his execution.

Kotono was wearing leg-warmers. Striped leg warmers. Like she was trying hard to match that woman from Bubblegum Crisis, Linna Yamazaki.

She was hired specifically because of it, like Anika had told him right after watching. Shinji took a deep breath. At least he could be certain of one thing... he wasn’t the craziest person on the asteroid.

Kotono looked up at him, a relieved smile spreading across your face. “Glad to see you’ve decided to join us again, Shinji,”

“Um....well.”

That was as far as he got.

“Anika’s up in the main control room. There’s a mail drone up there for you.”

“I don’t know the way.”

It was a half-truth. He had an idea where it might be, if he traced his steps from the previous day. It was an excuse, really.

“There’s a navigator on the table that’ll take you to where you need to go.”

In other words ‘You’re out of bed, now get going.”

Again, Shinji sighed. “Alright, I’ll go.”

“Good.” her smile broadened. “Though, if you don’t want to walk around I suggest you go down to the motorpool. Ford will give you something to get around in,”

It was only a suggestion. A small part of him jumped at the idea of being allowed to drive the Warthog again. That had been fun. Just thinking about it made him smile again. It brought up a little giddy rush from deep inside him.

The motorpool was, according to the navigator, twice as far away as the control room but Shinji decided he wanted to drive.

He made sure to close the door behind him as he left.

----

Kotono smiled as she picked up her communicator.

“He’s on his way down now.”

She received a quick thank you before she closed the channel and turned on the television. Through the eyes of an exocomp, she followed Shinji down.

----

Shinji suspected a few of the little hoverbot things were following him. Two of them kept their distance, being discrete but still noticeable. He reminded himself that he’d been warned they’d be curious.

Aside from their whirring motors, or a distant creak of metal, it was dead quiet. The air was dead still and dry as a tomb. It closed in around him, compressing down on top of him, forcing him to wonder why he hadn’t ask for some music, for anything to make this lonely quiet go away.

It was worse than the beach. At least there’d been the sea

There was a rawness to the solitude, enhanced by the sense that he was in the centre of somewhere that might once have been a living town. There were open areas that’d been abandoned and stripped, places which might’ve been community meeting points. One was still labelled as a playground, with painted murals on the wall of green fields and sunshine and the ghosts of children’s amusements still etched into the floor.

It reminded him of some of the near-abandoned towns near the coast, kept alove solely by a final few stubborn residents.

Anika’s apartment had a paper sign on the door letting anyone know she was up in the control room, and would be for some time. These should’ve been family homes he was passing but instead they stood empty. His navigator signaled a left turn onto a new corridor. Windows to his right allowed a view of the rock outside. He could see lights on where he guessed Kotono’s apartment was. Two others were lit up. The rest of the accommodation block was dark.

So that’s what Asuka meant, about lights making a city seem alive.

He had only his footsteps for company.

Shinji tried to fill the world with the noise from his mind, but that just dredged up more bad memories instead. His body demanded he stop... just to find somewhere to curl up under and hide and make them go away.

Sorry kid, nothing personal.

You’re own your own now Shinji. You have to make your own decisions.

Asuka... Unit 02 is...

He heard himself scream.

You’re everything you have and you never even learned to like yourself.

He stopped dead in the middle of a corridor. The following exocomps waited in anticipation. Shinji just stood there with his hands pressing into the side of his skull trying to squash the memories out of his mind.

He stood on the beach, watching the waves roll in as what had been Rei dissolved into the ocean. He nailed Misato’s cross to the scorched stump of a telephone pole snapped like a matchstick.

He had days alone. Time to go hungry. Time to forage. Time to carve little grave markers for everyone he could think of. Time to understand what it truly meant to be alone with only the rhythm of the waves for company.

And here he was, alone.

“Somebody,” he whimpered.

He turned about half sold on the idea of turning and running back to Kotono’s apartment just to see someone human, to convince himself that there was human life on Frigga.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

Asuka was there beside him on the beach. Alive and smelling of blood and lavender and so real when her hand brushed against his face that he felt tears welling up in his eyes just thinking about it. He screwed his eyes shut.

I would never let myself be killed by the likes of you.

He went to sleep beside her in the ruins of a house, then woke up in that bed under a plastic blanket. Alone again.

“You are not alone.”

His eyes shot open.

Rei was there, standing in front of him. Red eyes regarded him with deep curiousity which. He could see the universe in her gaze. He could see a reflection of himself staring like a rabbit in headlights.

The faintest smile softened her face.

Shinji blinked.

Rei was gone. He was alone again. The exocomps were watching.

----

Kotono edged forward on her seat. A fresh cup of green tea was steaming beside her laptop computer.

“That’s funny. What did he see?”

-----

“That’s funny,” Anika said, staring at the grid display. She rewound it a few seconds. A momentary spike in current through an otherwise stable circuit. It was like someone’d switched in an electric motor, but there was nothing down there that should’ve been switching in.

“Probably nothing,” she concluded.

She got back to her IM’s. There were far more important things to worry about.

Like making the eyes on the monitors follow the LARPers around the room, rather than just randomly glance.

----

Just to make it clear it wasn't all in his head....
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Dartz]

And more.

He had taken three steps back to Kotono’s apartment when he started hearing voices. For a moment, he thought they were coming from inside his head. He scanned around, craning his ears to try and define who it was.

Another female voice. Were there only women on Frigga?

She sounded like she was complaining.

“She didn’t have to hit me full force like that!”

“I don’t know, I thought it was hilarious, You go in there full force and she’s just like donk with one hand and then you get this oh crap look on your face before getting launched into the wall.”

A second woman. She was giggling. Shinji felt a ghost of a smile cross his lips.

“Even with all my augmentations that hurt.”

The first one again. Getting closer. They were ahead of him, coming from a side passage. Their voices reverberated against the walls.

“Well maybe next time you’ll follow the rules like the rest of us.”

A third voice. Dryer in tone.

“I know. Just because I can do a thing, doesn’t mean I should.” A pause. “I just wanted to show her what I could do.”

“And she showed you what she could do.” The second one giggled again.

Shinji’s first instinct was to turn and walk quietly away before they could spot him, but there was nowhere for him to go. They appeared around the corner moments later.

One looked a lot like Jet; her armour was the same basic style but painted in a deep red with silver trim that matched her shoulder-length hair. The second had graphite-black skin on her face, with white swirling tatoos on her cheeks, demonic-red eyes and blonde hair. Shinji didn’t recognise what she was wearing; it looked like generic armour, but whirred as she moved. The third wore little more than a form-fitting two-tone blue bodysuit that reminded him of a plugsuit, with armour on her shoulders, hips and - strangely - nowhere else. Her mousy brown hair was cropped short and she wore a cheery smile that reminded him horribly of Maya Ibuki.

“Oh, hello,” she said, a little startled by him.

Shinji’s mouth engaged before his brain did.

“Is everyone here a woman?”

“Well unless you’re hiding something on us,” the one in the bodysuit smirked at him. She’d been the one complaining.

His cheeks flushed with shame. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She smiled at him. “Come to think of it.... it is a bit strange.” She put a finger to her lips.

“Is that the kid from Neon Genesis Evangelion?” the red one asked, barely above a whisper. Voice number two.

Shinji started. Neon Genesis Evangelion.

“Shhh!” the dark skinned one hissed at her.

Red pouted. “Jet told us he knew.”

“That he’s an android. He doesn’t know about that yet.”

Shinji frowned at them. “I’m right here, you know.” A knot was already starting to turn in his stomach as his mind got to work on the implications of the phrase Neon Genesis Evangelion.

“Sorry,” the body suited one said with a soft smile. “I’m Ami Shinohara.”

Odd. She didn’t look or sound at all Japanese. Shinji’d pegged her as being ‘American’, though from where in the US he couldn’t tell. She offered him a handshake.

He offered a limp hand. Her fingers closed around his like a vice. He had the feeling That it should’ve hurt him a lot more than it actually did.

“Wow, Iron hand,” she said, releasing her grip.

Shinji stared at his right hand, clasping and unclasping it. There were fading red marks where her fingers had been.

“Amara Sara,” the red-armoured one offered.

“Tony Majellan Nite,” said the coal-skinned one with a smile that bared her razor-sharp incisors..

“Ikari Shinji,” the boy responded. His voice shrunk down to somewhere beneath his runners.

They looked down at him. He looked up at them. The two in the armour seemed to loom over him, actuators clicking and whirring as they moved.

He had to fill the silence.

“So... “ he glanced at all three of them. “You’re all like Jaguar too?”

“I am!” Ami announced. “I asked for the full combat cyborg package, and doesn’t it look awesome?”

She stretched, arching her back to show off as much of her clearly enhanced figure as she could. Shinji felt his cheeks flush again. Yes, yes it did. If you put Maya Ibuki in a plugsuit, Shinji thought, Ami was what you’d get.

Amara’s armour scratched against itself She scowled down at him.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to ask a Senshi if she’s modded?”

They’re soldiers?

He shrunk back. “No.”

“Well it is.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled through his teeth.

There was still one question nagging at the back of his mind, begging to be asked. Glancing between the three women and recalling his other little unintentional faux-pas, he wasn’t exactly sure he should.

Amara sighed. “Aside from the hair dye, I’m as nature made me, and Tony here...” she glanced at the other woman. She nodded her permission. “Is a Nazzadi biomod. We just bought these armours and signed up for training here because we couldn’t let Ami come out here alone.”

“Well, she helped me get over this.” Tony rapped her knuckles against the hard, plastic armour covering her chest. “So it’s the least we could do.”

Shinji nodded, despite that not really being the question he wanted to ask them. He swallowed a lump crawling up the back of his throat. Maybe it’d be best if he didn’t?

Maybe if he phrased it politely, they wouldn’t be offended.

The boy found himself cursing the English language as he tried to form the sentence in his mind, with the right level of submissive politeness.

“If I can humbly ask a question, and if it’s not too much trouble for you to answer, could you please tell me what sort of soldiers you are?”

All three of them shared a glance.

“We’re not soldiers, we’re Senshi,” answered Ami. She was staring down at him, wondering how he couldn’t possibly know the difference.

Shinji couldn’t point out to them that Senshi in Japanese meant ‘Soldier’.

“I’m a Moon Knight in the Crystal Tokyo Militia... but inside the city that’s closer to a police force really,” said Tony. “I’m not a soldier by any means.”

The boy just looked bewildered.

Amara offered a soft smile. “The term senshi comes from Sailor Senshi... from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. You’ve heard of it?”

Clearly, she expected an affirmative.

He didn’t want to disappoint her by answering in the negative, but didn’t want to lie either. He gently shook his head while swallowing the bitter certainty that he was making an idiot of himself, and that all three of them probably thought he was a moron.

She smirked at him. “Someone has sorely neglected your education.”

“I’ve only been here for two days,” he said in a petulant tone. It wasn’t his fault.

“You really should see Crystal Tokyo. Especially when it’s on the night side and it’s all lit up by its own floodlights. It’s beautiful. Like Ohtori Acadamy made of opaque glass.”

“Oh yeah,” Ami chimed in. “Especially the Rainbow bridge.”

Ohtori what?

Shinji forced a smile. “Maybe another time.”

“We might just have to hold you to that.” A glimmer in Amara’s eyes informed Shinji that it was more than just ‘might’.... they’d bring them themselves if they could.

He just wanted to curl up inside himself, close his eyes and hope they’d leave him alone. He had the perfect excuse to leave.

“I am expected down in the motor pool soon. I have to go.

Ami smiled at him “Oh, well don’t let us keep you. We’ll see you around,”

“Yeah,” Amara chipped in. “You’re kinda sweet.”

He felt himself flush a little once more.

“You made him blush Amara,” Tony teased. She threw him a cheerful smile. “i hope we can talk later, Shinji. “

“Goodbye!” he blurted out.

Shinji started running, following the directions on his navigator to the lift shaft. Their voices receded into the distance behind him. Solitude closed in once more. He was alone

Standing waiting for the lift to arrive, he cursed himself for running away from them.

And he was seeing Rei apparitions again. Was she trying to rescue him somehow? Shinji recalled that Anika’d told him Rei Ayanami - or a doppel of her - was on her way.

He decided that he could hope she was his Rei somehow. Either transported to this world, or a touchstone to the real reality that would take him home from this place.

-------

“He is lonely,”

“Frigga is a lonely place.”

“It’s more than that. And I think it’s more than they understand on Frigga

“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”

Rei looked at Yayoi for a moment, turning it over in her mind for a few moments.

“Yes.”
--------

Honestly, I utterly failed to think of any other 'combat cyborg'-type that wouldn't have Shinji running a mile.... and I remembered from the digging I did for Shadowrunning that Eva's plugsuits had inspired these so, what the hell.

And Nazzadi. Everything's better with Nazzadi.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Dartz]

Yet another scene.

And sleep at 6:40am finish off

Shinji was still shaking.

A painted sign on the rock wall opposite him flashed by telling him he still had a nine-minute ride to the bottom. More than halfway down. The lift carriage thundered on its tracks, booming in the tunnel.

He wished for his player back, if only to protect his ears.

He stared at his hand, clenching and releasing it. It still felt perfectly normal. It refused to feel in any way weird. The load indicator on the control panel told him he weighed about twenty kilograms more than he should have.

But if he jumped, he jumped just as high as he always had, and landed just as hard. The load reading peaked high, but still informed him that there were thousands of kilograms to spare.

The image of Rei was either a construct of his mind, the Rei who he was inside trying to..... do something, he didn’t know what. Trying to get him comfortable, to accept this place. A place inside her?

And the Rei they said was coming, was either a fake image like Mackie, or just another attempt by this false reality to get him to stay inside. Or Rei just trying to ensure he was happy wherever he was.

And a hundred other theories that made even less sense than those.

And what was Neon Genesis Evangelion? He guessed that might be his movie, or his OVA. Everyone around him probably knew every intimate detail of his life. He didn’t doubt he was one of the main characters.... Though what sort of mecha show would have him has a protagonist, he didn’t want to know. Real life was nothing like television.

Either that or it would all be part of the illusion.

Shinji promised himself he wouldn’t ever watch it.

An unlit tunnel went by; he felt the cold draught of air rush out from it as a carriage passed. The teen paced around the carriage, steel floor rattling under his feet. It was large enough to park a decent bus on, easily.

Above him, the same two hoverbots descended, keeping a safe distance. That had long gone past simple curiousity. Shinji was clever enough to realise that they were specifically following him now.

They’d likely been ordered to keep a watch on him.

Which meant that the Friggans wanted to keep an eye on him, without being seen to be following him. They were probably giving him space on his own to come to terms with things, or come to his own conclusions.

If his own life had been a TV series which they’d watched, they were probably thinking about the time he’s run away from Misato. He felt tears well up, remembering how warm she’d been and how her body’d been as soft as her smile when she hugged him.

And how sad her eyes had been when the lift door had slammed shut.

He stood alone in the carriage, sniffling and trying to clear his eyes and stop himself from breaking down into wreaking sobs he could feel rising up inside him.

And still those exocomps silently watched.

Shinji fought down the urge to give them the finger while trying to grind the tears out of his eyes with the heels of his hands. He tried to swallow the ghost flavour of blood that tingled in his mouth.

The carriage shuddered to a halt at the bottom of its shaft. The doors fell open with a hard metallic slam. He blinked, for a few moments expecting his blurred vision to clarify into something resembling Unit 01’s arm trapped in bakelite.

He saw windows instead, overlooking the landing bay. Below him, a black jet reminiscent of a type of UN bomber was pushing itself out of a side hanger Shinji swore he hadn’t seen despite clearly being large enough to hide a 4-engined jet. Yellow lights blinked out at warning rhythm overhead.

It silently rolled forward, engines kicking up dust.

It was a stealth bomber. There were no running lights, no markings on matte grey paint that seemed immune to the overhead lights. It’s engines ran silent as a ghost. It was, he felt, something he wasn’t expected to see.

He stepped forward, a little bewildered by the sight of it.

It was a B1. Old United States Air Force. He remembered the recognition guides. Russian gunships that were spacecraft, and now a bomber?

It rushed out of view riding a puff of vapour. Shinji ran to a nearby door and tried to pull it open, to see who was running away and why. It unlocked, but some unseen force pinned it shut when he tried to pull it open. Stuck?

Shinji strained, feeling a hot flash of energy rush through him. The door groaned and pulled open just a crack. A cool rush of air rushed through, grabbing at the door and slamming it hard shut again.

A gauge beside the door informed him that the pressure on the other side was zero. Zero pressure, he thought, taking a few moments to grasp what that meant. A few deep breaths cleared his mind.

He’d tried to open a door, with the vacuum of space on the other side. Air pressure pinned the door shut. The bomber’s engines were silent because there’d been no air in the hangar.

The same pair of hoverbots were still observing him, hovering there with lenses staring. A few more hoverbots whirred passed, going about their business. One shot by going at a speed that would’ve been lethal if it’d hit him before banking around into a side passage.

He swallowed a calming breath and decided it was best if he just hurried up and got to where he was expected to be. From somewhere further up ahead, he could hear the sounds of machinery working from further down the corridor, mingling with some jazzy music that brought a smile to his face.

Life!

At the other end of a passage wide enough to carry two way traffic. He passed a shuttered door large enough to drive a truck through. The word ‘Maintainence’ was painted on it in faded letters taller than he was..

Outside one of a number of doors was an old Ford motor company badge, beside another logo formed from the letters FH superimposed over a yellow crescent moon on a black background.

‘Ford’s Heavyarms’

He swallowed again and raised his hand, paused for a moment thinking better of it, before finally knocking on the door.

He knocked on the door.

No answer.

She took another calming breath, knocked again and waited.

The music kept playing, the machines kept turning. The door remained closed.

Shinji knocked for a third time. One of the hoverbots following him knew better and shunted the door open for him. He stumbled through after it, into a room smelling of metal and oil, packed with machines working away by themselves cutting metal. Like everything else on Frigga, it dwarfed its occupants. Shinji could tell just by how the music echoed that the room extended far beyond the workshop area that was lit up. Shadows of sleeping dinosaur machines slumbered in the distance. A glint off something metallic caught his eye for a moment.

Ford was busy working in the guts of another one of those hoverbots, its shell split open with a spaghetti of wires trailing. Each one had been meticulously labelled with masking tape. Beside that was a comically oversized double-barrel rifle with some ornate, almost antique-looking fixtures on the barrels. It was still dirty and waiting to be finished. One of the outer covers was off, revealing some sort of rotating brass coil which looked like an odd kind of electric motor.

Stacked against the wall in the far corner, carefully sealed in plastic, were three chromed cylinders taller than he was, each as thick as his leg with a coil of pipework wound around them. Each one was labelled as radioactive. Above them, a faded poster detailing emergency first-aid proceedures.

Three laptops sat on a table beside them, each hooked up to a spaghetti tangle of cables and circuit boards. They were on, but seemed to be doing nothing at all except flickering their screens. Shinji almost thought they might’ve been having an argument with each other, MAGI-style, but they were just laptops. He guessed they were just networked somehow and sharing some workload between them. Some engineer thing maybe.

Music came from a two-speaker stereo set beside that, which could’ve been made anytime since 1982 and seemed to be firmly unremarkable amongst the supertech.

His feet scuffed along the floor. Even above the noise of the machinery and music, Ford heard him.

“Oh, hiya Shinji! I’ve been waiting for you.”

The sheer force of cheerfullness from her face froze him to the spot. Half his mind immediately screamed at him to get out the door, it just wasn’t Japanese. It was so different to what he was used to. The rest of him easily picked her accent out as mid-western American, probably from Chicago.

“Hi.” He looked up at her, “I was told to come here.”

“So you enjoyed your little drive yesterday then?”

He nodded. “Yes ma’am,”

“And you want to do it again, right?”

“Yes ma’am.”

He tried to hide how much he was shaking inside.

She was wiping her hands off in a rag, resting back against the workbench. “I assume you can’t drive stick.”

He smiled nervously. “I didn’t even know I could drive.”

“Well, driving an auto isn’t hard. Especially with no traffic to worry about. The problem is, we don’t have many auto’s.”

Shini’s eyebrow rose “Many?”

Ford’s smile broadened into a grin. “Follow me and I’ll show you.” She pushed herself up off the bench, stretching herself, giving Shinji a wonderful view of the side of her tank-top. and the point where the metal of her arm met her natural body.

He gave her a wordless nod, his mind already drifting back to the door. Shinji immediately decided never to tell anyone about it. Still, he hadn’t expected there to be vacuum on the other side of the door.

The thought occurred to him that he’d normally expect there to be a vacuum on the other side of a door. And dreams, weren’t they...

The thought was interrupted by the overhead lights punching on. The first revealed a small selection of various cars and motorcycles. For a brief moment, Shinji actually expected the whole room to be filled with cars.

It was actually a minor dissapointment to find that it was mostly empty space,

One was an old model, with patchwork paint and engineless. What must’ve been the engine was on a bench. The windscreen was gone and the interior looked to be a mess. It looked like a drowned car that’d been dredged up from one of the old cities. The only visible identification were the letters ‘GT-500’ on the lower edge of the door.

“What a heap of junk,” he commented.

Ford’s eyes narrowed at him. “Even like that it’s worth more than everything else in here combined.”

He cringed. “Sorry,”

“Hey, it’s alright. It looks a lot like the standard one to people who don’t know better.”

Beyond that, something with a South Australia registration. It was another old Ford, this one a four door police-car painted in yellow and blue with a white and red cheatline separating both colours.

“That’s a Falcon XB Jet bought for me. It’s an automatic.” Shinji dreaded being told to drive it. “But the transmission was blown on it by some idiot thinking he was Mad Max. That’s how she got it so cheap.”

Those four headlights menaced him as he passed.

There were three others, new models, one of which Ford Sierra told him she’d taken her own name from. They seemed a little less remarkable, more modern 4-door family cars. He looked ip at her.

“How do you afford all these?”

Again, she smiled down at him.

“Well, we only getting one chance at the trough. We might aswell eat our fill and enjoy it while we can.”

The boy nodded. A very American attitude, he thought.

“Besides, I think it’s important to try and preserve a few of them for the future. Especially with how fast the universe is changing.”

Again, he nodded. “That’s why Misato kept her car. She loved pre-impact cars.”

She’d’ve probably been able to appreciate this little collection.

“What did she have?”

“A Renault. I think....” To his shame, he couldn’t remember more about it that than. “The engine was in the back,”

“Probably an Alpine then,” said Ford. “Those are rare.”

Shinji went quiet. His last memory of that car was of bullets clattering against the engine. Misato yelped and pumped at the brakes as the concrete wall grew inexorably closer. The next thing he knew, he was bleeding out his mouth where he’d bitten his lip in the impact.

He licked at his lip. There wasn’t even a tender spot left.

“It’s just back here.”

She pointed at a low-slung shape lurking behind a collection old ancient firecracker-red Kawasakis, something sleek and modern called a Stingray and an ancient BMW with an incontinent oilstain on the floor underneath it.

It was a red monster, stretched out and styled like something stolen from an ancient animé series, reminding him a little of the motorcycle he’d seen up in that house. It was stretched out between front and rear wheels, almost like it was going past as at full speed despite being parked up and supported by a pair of stabiliser wheels beneath what appeared to be a set of oversized panniers suspended either side of the rear wheel.

Ford put a hand into her pocket, fumblin with what sounded like change, before extracting the keys. She dangled them in front of him.

The boys eyes went wide.

“It’s yours, unless you’d rather walk.”

“But...” He glanced up at her. No... this wasn’t a joke, she clearly meant it. She was offering him that monster. “But...” His mind spinlocked for a moment. The keys still dangled, shining in the light. Fresh and new. “I don’t know how to ride a motorbike.”

He’d found a bicycle once and been called a thief for riding it. His eyes pleaded for more reassurance.

“it’s turbo-electric with a tanalloy battery. Just don’t flick the red switch and the rest should sort itself out. Twistgrip goes faster. Brake slows it down. Try to keep it below a hundred, ,mmm’kay?”

Shinji opened his mouth to say something

“It’s mine?” He finally managed to force out.

“If you want to use it, yeah, you can keep it.” Her shoulders shrugged. “We built it and we’re not using it. It’s yours.”

“It’s mine?” Shinji repeated.

“Yep. All yours,” she confirmed.

“But...” he glanced between her, clearly serious and struggling not to smirk, and the motorcycle which he was certain must’ve cost a large amount of money. There was no getting around it, he had no choice but accept the gift. “Thank you,” he said, with all the reluctance of a death row inmate thanking the execution.

Ford dropped the keys into his hand. They were still warm from being in her pocket.

“There’s a manual and a helmet in the right pannier. You should be able to figure it out yourself.”

“That’s more training than NERV gave me,” he murmured.

“Well, I don’t have time. I’ve got work to do,” she explained. “Just take it easy and you won’t have a problem. It’ll even stabilise itself so it won’t fall over.”

“Well okay....”

He didn’t understand how it could possible that a motorcycle would be more complicated than an Evangelion. The control handles looked similar, but they had far more buttons. Something mysterious under a transparent molly guard was unhelpfully labelled ‘switch’. There were three small square screens under the windshield, with a fourth set into what he thought was the fuel tank.

Again, it was nothing like what his expectations of a motorcycle should have been. And nothing did what he expected it to. He tried the molly-guarded switch.... and nothing happened. He tried it again with the key in what he thought was the ignition.

Both panniers opened instead.

He could hear Ford chuckling away to herself as she got back to work, probing in at the guts of the hoverbot, reading the results out on the meter beside her. It chirped and cheeped as she poked.

Shinji found the manual in the pannier.... as some strange keyboard and screen slab like a laptop opened flat.

He looked up from it just in time to see Jet Jaguar roll in through the door, her body encased in some sort of crash padding. Shinji blinked at the wheels strapped to her feet.

“Got another brick.”

She had one of the hoverbots under her arm. And still managed to sound rough and husky as she spoke.

“One of the 17’s?” Ford asked, throwing a glance at her for a moment.

“Yep. The old ones don’t like the new updates.”

Shinji silently crouched down onto tank of the bike, hoping the cyborg wouldn’t spot him.

Ford sighed. “Stick it on the bench, I’ll get to it after I work on the Padraig project.”

Jet gave her a gentle smile. “I’ll take care of it.” She dropped it onto the bench beside her with a thud.

“With your fingers all you’ll do is break it more.”

The cyber’s disappointment was obvious. “Alright...”

“Beside, we have company.” Ford betrayed him with a quick nod of her head in his direction

He pressed himself down against the tank, trying his level best to merge with the metal and hope she didn’t spot him.

“Oh Hi,” she said. “How’re you feeling today, Shinji?”

He shuddered, she was trying to sound kind but it fell flat on his face. All Shinji could recall when he heard her voice was the gruff, painfully direct way she’d spoken at him the day before. The English language masked it, her expression was kind and her eyes had a gentle decency to them....

It was a mask, a lie that’d come out when she spoke Japanese.

“Better.” He lied too, breaking eye contact.

Jet rolled across the floor, using some rolleblade-like boots strapped to her feet. Shinji willed her to go away, but evidently telepathy was one thing she couldn’t do.

“I heard you talked with Anika this morning,”

Shinji just nodded. He didn’t want to speak with her, even though she seemed determined not to leave him alone. Has hand gripped tight on the throttle, forming into a fist around the faux-rubber grip.

“She told you about yourself?”

Another lump in his throat. Another nod. He couldn’t answer that.

“And how do you feel about it?” she asked again.

He looked at her, a momentary snarl crossing his face. She was the focus. She was the one behind all of it. She was the one who’d planned all of it.

She was fucking huge.

“I opened a door, and there was space on the other side of it. Dreams don’t work like that.”

He could feel himself starting to shake inside.

“If this is real, then everyone I ever cared about never was. I never was.” He swallowed hard. “Nobody I care a.... about.....” He gasped. They still watched.“The people I wanted to see and came...... and......and....” He hiccuped. He choked. He struggled to breath for a half second. Jet and Ford watched, both looking at eachother, then at him, faces a mix of confusion and concern.

“They’re not here and I’m...” he finally burst out in a wrecking sob that rose right up out of the pit of his stomach.

His breath was hot in his mouth between gasps, misting on the cold metal fuel tank. The metal was cool against his cheek, sucking heat from his body. Tear dripped from his cheeks onto the paint.

“I just want to see them again,” he choked out between sobs.

A heavy, cold hand gripped his shoulder like a vice.

“I know how you feel,” said Jet, her voice almost passing for gentle.

“You can’t possibly know!”

It was like hitting a scaffold pole. Her arm didn’t even budge. The shock of impact ran right up his arm and through his body, ringing his skeleton like a bell. A pinch of pain bit deep and he yelped.

Jet’s arm never even moved.

Shinji looked up at her, horror rising in the pit of his stomach. He was still panting, still shaking, with tears crawling down his cheeks. She was glaring hard at him...

“Jet...” Ford interjected. She was standing there, casually wiping her hands in a clean towel.

Jet glanced back at her, the ice in her eyes slowly melting away. The grip on his shoulder relaxed, but that hand felt like it was made from a solid block of iron, still pressing onto his shoulder.

“Right, the movers are on their way in. I’ll give them the escort.” Her hand slipped off his shoulder and she turned around. “If you want to talk about it, Shinji, message me.”

He sniffed and nodded. He didn’t really. It was just a promise to contact her if he wanted to talk to her, and he was certain he didn’t. He watched her leave, in between grinding the tears out of his eyes. Jet just bladed out the door with a wave to her partner.

Shinji looked at Ford, who’d sat herself up against her workbench. “Some of her friends were killed a few years back,” she explained.

Shinji hummed to himself. His reflection stared back at him from the instrument panel glass.

“I’m alone here.” he whispered.

“Now that’s just not true,” Ford stated. “Frigga’s a lonely place, but nobody’s alone out here.” She was arms akimbo, pretending to be offended by it.

Shinji give her a wan smile, at least appreciating the effort.

He sat on the saddle of the motorbike, steadily cooling off. His mind swam with ideas he struggled to make sense of. The words Neon Genesis Evangelion flashed through his mind, chased by the realisation that if Rei was coming, she was likely just another ‘fake’ like he was.

He closed his eyes, inhaling a long deep breath before blowing it out through his lips. He still felt like himself...

“So, what do I do now?” he asked.

“It’s your choice. You can talk to Jet, you can go talk to Anika like you planned, stay here and help me out, or if you want to take the time to think about it yourself you can go home to Kotono.”

The word ‘home’ made him wince inside, bringing up memories of a place he knew wasn’t real, but could still remember in such vivid detail that he longed for it anyway.

Shinji gripped his hand around the throttle and closed his eyes.

----

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[Warringer]

Hope the guys come fast to help out Shinji...

[robkelk]

They're on their way...

Dartz, do you want me to write anything from Yayoi's point of view for this?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

If you have a good idea, go right ahead I don't know Yayoi all that well.

Shinji's probably going to go to Anika next.... They've blundered about and they aren't sure whether they've done the right thing or not, but at least his head's in the real world... while Anika shows him some of the cooler things AI's can do.

Meanwhile. Non-canon boredom aliviation moment because I had to write a little bit of action. Random J Fen knows Jet and Anika have Shinji..... knows their fandoms. This appears on interwave forum soon after.

“C’mon Shinji, answer me.”

The red-framed Astray loomed over the fallen form of the 105X. It’s rifle had gone flying in the impact, most of the cockpit armour buckled by a hard hit.

“That was a hell of a kick... maybe he was knocked unconscious.” Anika suggested.

Moving like liquid, the 105 gripped on tight to the Astray’s arm with both hands. Jet felt herself smirk.

“He’s awake.”

One solid boot to the chest tore the limb free and sent the lighter mech flying. Sparks sprayed out as red hydraulic oil jetted out into the sand. The crowd cheered at the sudden comeback.

“Um..... there’s something wrong. Power output from the engines is going offscale high..... the generator safety limiters are disengaging.”

The 105X took to the air, boosters screaming and kicking up dust from the arena floor. It seemed to hang from its jets, body limp and organic. Air currents swirled over its head forming a halo glowing with the arena lights.

“What? That’s impossible.”

The wounded Astray tried to raise its rifle.Three snapshots spat out. Computers determined that they never even got close to the jinking 105X. The 105 flipped itself through the air, leading into a flying kick with both of its feet. The Astray was driven into the ground as the 105X landed hard on top of it.

A foot stomped on the rifle. Capacitors burst apart and shorted, sending shrapnel flying.

“I’ve lost the uplink, I’m trying to re-initialise.”

The Astray fired its jets in desperation, boosting back away from the 105X. The 105X roared after it with berserk fury. Spectators whooped. The commentators went ecstatic. It was all part of the show, wasn’t it?

“Get it back. Get me Shinji’s telemetry.”

The Astray tried to defend itself with its vibroblade. The 105X crashed right into it, ramming home with a shocking brutality. The crowd stopped cheering as both machines smashed into the ground once more, the buzzing blade flying off before landing nearly a kilometre away.

“You don’t think?”

The Astray’s engines were crushed by the landing. It raised its remaining arm, trying to grab at the 105X’s head. With a wrench of metal and crackling composites snapping like bones the 105X twisted the arm off at the elbow before throwing it free.

“I don’t know.”

The spectators watching over the video screens had gone quiet. This was way beyond a ‘match’ now. This was brutal... this was visceral. This was terrifying. Was that thing under control?

Was the pilot doing it on purpose?

“I can’t get cockpit view, the camera’s offline. I’ve got audio.”

The music. A peal of violins collapsing down into a malevolent march of brass, stomping and heaving like a monster. Jet Jaguar’s face visibly blanched.... she recognised the tune immediately.

“I’m getting telemetry. I’ve got telemetry from the computers.” Anika was almost breathless. “It’s....”

“What?”

“It’s awakened!” She yelled.

“What? That’s impossible!” Jet repeated.

“Well she did warn us that the cores were unstable,” Anika reminded her.

“But it’s never caused a problem before!”

The Astray rolled out from underneath, using a pair of head-mounted vulcan cannons to give it a chance to escape. Armless, it wasn’t going to do much good, but it might not get smashed.

“There’s a ghost line in the core!”

Jet’s blood ran cold. Anika was panting.

“Command override, emergency shutdown. Cut the hard links to the Strike pack.”

The keyboard beneath Anika’s fingers chattered as she worked. The 105X pounced on the damaged Astray before it could make a good escape, driving it to the ground once more.

“No response.”

“Then force eject the pilot, we have to stop it.”

The 105X hunched down over its wounded target, pinning the wreck in place with its shield before drawing it’s free arm back for the final punch. The Astray’s pilot transmitted his surrender.

“It’s rejecting external commands. I can’t.... it just won’t answer.”

Everyone in the booth was staring at them. Nobody breathed. Jet grit her teeth, already moving to bolt out the bunker door. That Astray Pilot would die.

A moment later the 105X stopped itself before it could deliver what would obviously have been a fatal blow. It stood itself fully upright before returning to a rest position with its arms by its side.

Jet stopped. “What happened?”

“Answering shutdown command,” Anika said. Her voice was utterly drained of energy.

The 105X stood, apparently inert.The crowd watching over video links were unsure whether to cheer a victory, or cheer the fact that the Astray pilot was safely clambering out of his cockpit and making a run for it. The blue and white mech loomed, engines still whining as they powered down.

The word ‘berserker’ was on more than a few people’s lips.

The radio panel beeped a moment later. Both shared a glance at each other. It beeped again, demanding attention.

Jet opened the channel.

An animated girl in a green school uniform, with a bust that was clearly unnatural. Her hair was cut straight as an arrow, with a single parting above bright, blue expressive eyes.

“Oh no.” Jet murmured. She recognised the art style immediately.....

“Hi there!” the animate girl announced, her voice cheery as a cherry ontop of a sundae. “Sorry about scaring everyone like that but I just had to make sure my little man inside me here,...” A little pink heart popped up beside her onscreen, before bursting. “....Wasn’t going to get hurt. He overheated himself, but he should make a full recovery.”

She wore an ecchi-smirk, winking at all present as she clutched an image of an sleeping animé shinji to her chest.

“Who’s this then?” Anika asked, a soft blush heating her cheeks.

“Oh right. I’m Isaka Minagata. I’m an Artificial Intelligence.”

“Isaka?”

“Aw shit,” Jet said. She was going to catch hell for it.

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Star Ranger4]

...

...

Is it just me or do those first 3 covers have a very high inuendo content?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Foxboy]

Of EXaXXion? Why the hell do you think Sonoda made the title include three X-es?

Now the question to ask yourself... is Isaka just an "ordinary" AI or is she on the verge of pulling a Dee?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Dartz]

Depends on if the rest collective wants her and the 105X to 'exist' in mainline. The 105X is something for That Timeline.... Giant robot might be pushing their cool quantity a bit far in mainline.

Isaka as Dee..... Isaka, Gundam, Big Gun, Tanalloy batteries based on technology they don't half understand but used anyway, then add Shinji Ikari...... hmmm. Giggle.
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[Dartz]

And more story

Nerv gave the kid a giant robot..... a motorcycle is nothing.

Kotono watched Shinji leave, instructing those exocomps to follow. He watched the boy on the monitor tease a motorcycle that looked far too large for him out the door.

There was no way in hell the exocomps could keep up with him when he opened the throttle and rushed off into the distance.

It was obvious he did it on purpose.

“Well, at least he’s found something that’s fun.”

-----

An obsidian black piano sat in the centre of the training gym on the wooden floor.

“Will this do?” Jet asked.

The man from Steinway looked around.

“It’s a little.... unusual.” he said, taking a moment to pick his words.The oversized ballisword hung on the far wall kept drawing his eyes. “It’s not perfect but it’s probably the best place for it.”

“If you need anything...”

“A cup of tea would be nice.”

------

Shinji came to a decision.

He liked driving. He liked riding. He liked vehicles and going fast. He loved that moment when he gripped that throttle, the turbine whooshed and the motors wined, kicking him in the backside and throwing the whole motorcycle forward.

He bathed in the glow of a starship-enterprise instrument panel that might’ve confused even NERV’s interface designers. It was a wall of information displayed haphazardly on a bunch of LCD screens.

The only thing he understood was that his speed was a steady 70kph, something called an ‘auto-balancer’ was active and the headlights were on full beam. His navigator was pinned between the speedometer and the windscreen because he couldn’t figure out how to get the bike’s own working.

It might’ve been a good idea to read the manual beyond ‘turn it on’.

Still, it was an electric thrill to watch the speedometer tick over to three digits. The rock walls rushed by on either side, illuminated momentarily by the bike’s headlight before passing behind into a dull red gloom behind.

The helmet was loose on his head and the armoured jacket was being tugged off his shoulders by the cold air rushing past.

But for a fourteen year old boy, it was liberating.

All his stresses just drifted away off his back with the wind.

Squeeze the throttle and it punched forward with a surge from the batteries before the turbine spooled up. Ease off again and the motors began to whine, recharging the batteries again. He was laughing as he did it....

These people had to be crazy on some level if they gave a fourteen year old child a motorcycle and set him free.

It was... nice.

-----

To “Shinjislist
From: jet@survivalshot.fen
Subj: It’s a new day...

Anika spoke with him this morning. She told him the truth about where he came from. He was calmer, maybe it was catharsis, and he listened to her. He doesn’t want this to be real.

We encouraged him to spend time with Anika later on, he’s on his way to her now.

He could’ve walked but he asked for a vehicle. Shinji specifically went down to Ford and asked for something to drive or ride. Daryl let him drive the Warthog yesterday, I guess he enjoyed it. Ford gave him the Judy prototype we have and some riding gear.

I met him again myself in Ford’s workshop and asked him about Anika, and what she told him. He broke down crying again, and admitted that he doesn’t want this to be real because it means all the people he cared about aren’t real.

I hope that’s a good sign. At least his mind is in the real world now. But he’s not happy about it.

Loneliness. Well.... we knew that was going to happen. We’re trying to be his friends. That’s the one thing we got right. Anika’s succeeding. That’s kind of appropriate really.

We’re trying to let him find and do things he enjoys doing aswell. He’s already turning into a gearhead. The Piano is installed in the gym, and Anika is waiting.

Trying not to make it worse.
-Jet

Why do I work so late/early?

Hopefully I'm not screwing this up, or interrupting things other people want to add.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[ECSNorway]

"You are not alone."

Yeah, I can totally see Rei puling that off.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay, now that he is at this point, I can see him taking the Curious Case of R. Regina Langley-Rhodes... well, relatively well. It'd freak him out some, but I'm pretty sure he'd still come to grips in short order. Plus, just the way she behaves... acting like Asuka in so many superficial ways like that sarcastic humor, mischievous needling, and brash nature. But there, the resemblance ends. She's collected, she's confident (not the false sort she used to project), and generally more graceful (and I don't mean in how she carries herself).

So, what say if, while Shinji is on his ride, he happens to have a chance encounter with a strange person on sprockin' huge motorcycle, ridiculously fat tires, gleaming black with cool blue light shining from between the panels, twin-turbine engines howling like banshees, rider seeming more apart of the machine than just riding it... No words are exchanged as the apparently seasoned rider shows the newly minted one the twisting and turning paths through the rock that is Frigga, for he is a frequent visitor to this lonesome place.

And as suddenly as it starts, it ends, with the mysterious rider disappearing unseen down some tunnel. Thus Shinji has his first encounter with the Lunatic Fringe. He vows that it will not be his last, but instead the first of many encounters.

[Warringer]

Well, at least Shinji is having fun at the moment. Can't be more dangerous to him then driving an Eva...

[Dartz]

So, what say if, while Shinji is on his ride, he happens to have a chance encounter with a strange person on sprockin' huge motorcycle, ridiculously fat tires, gleaming black with cool blue light shining from between the panels, twin-turbine engines howling like banshees, rider seeming more apart of the machine than just riding it... No words are exchanged as the apparently seasoned rider shows the newly minted one the twisting and turning paths through the rock that is Frigga, for he is a frequent visitor to this lonesome place.

Hmmmmm...Frigga 500 anyone? Vehicles must be wheeled. Only handwavium allowed is for safety reasons. And since it's a 5 lap race and each lap is 100km long, must be able to go at least 100km without refuelling/charging. Run through the tunnelling and unused chambers. Video recorded by drones and on-vehicle and streamed for a fee. Any interested investors/sponsors/racers?

Back to the topic at hand.

Shinji/Gina I'm less certain of that Shinji/Rei..... I think meeting Gina first would be tougher on him, precisely because he remembers strangling Asuka..... And Rei has always been his touchstone for weird. That, and I'm a Rei-fan. Although Gina's reaction to being told that Shinji enjoys riding motorcycles is bound to be hilarious...
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